The openSUSE Release process

To get openSUSE out is a lot of work. We already shared part of what we are doing to keep Factory rolling. But as you can guess, there is much more to it. But let’s pretend it is a simple three-step process:

Step one: developing Factory

When release openSUSE, we immediately start working on the next version: a never ending story. First thing that happens during a new release cycle is coolo announcing the road map. This is the schedule of the release and important checkpoints that we have to reach on our way. After the release Factory (our development version) is not frozen anymore and people can start submitting new stuff. Usually they go crazy and submit a lot of bleeding edge and experimental packages and quite some parts of Factory will get broken.

Now comes the time for keeping Factory rolling. As one picture can say more than thousand words, take a look at how packages get into factory: